Dynamic Forces Of Organizational Change: Alignment Of Interests & Imposition Of Identity

Organizations need to be aware of the drivers for change and how to prepare, plan, lead and implement programmes designed to meet these challenges. Organizational change has often been approached as either a change of staffing structure or a change in technology but commonly these changes are intimately interconnected.
For organizational changes to succeed it is necessary for managers to negotiate new staff roles (identities) and to persuade staff to disengage from their existing teams and structures and to align to new structures (networks of association). This study examines the introduction of technology for use by administrative staff in a Higher Education Institution and how their interests were aligned, and identities re-negotiated. There is comparatively little investigation into the impact of change on Higher Education Professional Services staff. This work seeks further understanding in this area.
The study made use of a series of convergent interviews, participant observation and document analysis carried out as a case study. The specific case detailed here was part of a planned programme of organizational and technological change. Interviews revealed that administrative staff role identities had changed significantly over time but in this instance the driver for change and the success of the project was the convergence of structure and technology.
Data was analysed through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) which allows for the consideration of the social and material (technical) aspects of the case. ANT has a reputation for being difficult to operationalise in the field but for this research project, the method was used as a guide to assist with the identification of stakeholders and as a technique to aid data analysis.
Analysis suggests that for change programmes to be successful it is necessary for managers to have local champions (allies) communicating the benefits, a good understanding of existing interests and identities that need to be re-aligned and the influence of other networks that could act to destabilise (betray) the new network. The outcome of the research is a new model, the Dynamic Forces of Organizational Change that brings together the elements of Fisher’s Personal Transition Curve with ANT’s four moments of Translation. The model is designed to help those involved in change programmes to better understand the dynamic forces that need to be brought into alliances and to fend off those that could potentially disrupt planned change.